


Bump in the Night

by Gi33097



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Blood and Violence, Explicit Language, Family, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Platonic Relationships, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Supernatural Elements, but mostly canon compliant, oc (minor) - Freeform, they're teenagers now so there's swearing, this story focuses on the pines family and the classic gf characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-01 18:36:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2783597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gi33097/pseuds/Gi33097
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Picking up 5 years after the Pines’ first summer stay in Gravity Falls, the supernatural is no longer contained in a small town but still remains unknown to the public, and Dipper and Mabel, now teenage experts on everything that goes bump in the night, are pretty much used to never catching a break.</p>
<p>
  <i>“We need a signal,” Dipper huffed, trying to veer her back on course. He prayed none of the teenagers outside had witnessed that little exchange. “Like when we think we’ve found the guy?”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“How about ‘aaahhh’?”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, there! I've recently fallen in love with this amazing show and just had to take a shot at writing some fic for it! I love Gravity Falls' characters and its emphasis on family and friendships, so that's what a lot of this fic is going to focus on: exploring the characters as individuals as well as their relationships with each other and how those might have evolved within about a 5 year time span. It's my take on some older!Pines Twins and co. having to come together again to battle another big supernatural threat.
> 
> The story switches from Dipper to Mabel's focus and back again. The first chapter makes references to the show as well as Dipper and Mabel's Guide (like fire-breathing demons for instance). Not many of the old characters are present in this chapter, but rest assured they'll be making appearances soon enough!
> 
> And without further ado, here is the first chapter of Bump in the Night!
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Gravity Falls' fun characters or world; the ownership all goes to Alex Hirsch. I just own the couple minor characters I have living in Piedmont as the Pines' classmates.

“This is a bad idea.”

“You’re just saying that because it’s a party.”

“No. I’m not.” Gripping his sister’s sleeve, Dipper forced Mabel to a halt. She spun around with an exaggerated sigh.

Mabel was dressed to impress of course, in a red sweater she’d sewn herself. Instead of being thick and wooly though, she’d changed it up a bit, using a thinner material Dipper assumed was silk that scooped across her collarbone and fell just off her shoulders. When asked, her explanation had been that it allowed her more movement so she could “blow everyone away with her hecka awesome dance skills”. Judging by the way the material was nearly slipping completely off her shoulders every three seconds, he figured the change tonight was for more reasons than just that.

She was also wearing make-up. A lot of it. Which…wasn’t very Mabel-like at all.

She noticed him frowning and grabbed his shoulders, shaking him back and forth senselessly. “Bro, chiiiill. This is a party! It’s fuuuun! There’s music. And free food. Pretty girls. Look alive, man! Your fellow teenageren are counting on you!” She leaned in close and whispered dramatically. _“Don’t be the buzz kill.”_

Dipper pushed her face away. “Mabel, you and I have different definitions of fun. Don’t you remember how well it went the last time we tried hanging out with a bunch of teenagers together?”

She started walking again. “Pfft, it was just a couple lost spirits at the mall. We took care of it easy peasy.”

“You got possessed by one and tried to kill everyone.”

“That was one time!”

“Twice, actually, if you count that time with Wendy at the convenience store.”

Mabel threw up her hands. “Okay, twice! Sheesh! I’m still alive, aren’t I? Everything turned out fine.”

“And now we’re walking into a party where the monster is disguised as a kid that we know almost nothing about,” continued Dipper, “including what he looks like.”

“Hey.” Mabel pointed a finger. “This was your idea, buddy. Don’t forget, you were the one that said the party was a _perfect_ cover. “

“I know, I know. But—“Dipper scrambled for an argument, but came up empty. “That was before I thought everything through. I thought it through now, and it’s not a good idea. So let’s go back.”

“Nuh uh,” Mabel told him. “No taksies backsies. You’re going to this party, Dipper, even if I have to drag you by your feet kicking and screaming.”

“Geez, that’s kinda harsh.”

She must have heard a shift in his voice because in the next second she was bumping into his shoulder and forcing him to stumble a little off balance on the sidewalk. “You know, it’s okay to be, like, scared of the kids,” said Mabel, a bit softer. “That’s a totally A-Okay fear to have, Dip. You don’t have to get all flustered about it.”

He shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess…”

He’d never really been the best with people. Not like Mabel, who was a social butterfly in every sense of the word. Kids his age had always made him nervous, and it wasn’t their fault or anything, he just didn’t fit in with them. He was too mature or something. Things they wanted to talk about bored him and things he wanted to talk about made them stare at him like he’d grown two heads. It didn’t really help that he was quiet either. Mabel was quirky too, but she was _loud_ about it. When you were loud, you demanded attention and received it without question. When you pulled away from people, that’s how you were treated: like you weren’t there at all.

Dipper much preferred silence over the unwanted attention he’d had in middle school. He’d learned after eighth grade that shutting up about conspiracies and mysteries left the bullies without any ammo to use against him, and also made it easier to find a couple of school friends that would stick by him.

But a couple was a couple. It certainly wasn’t a mansion filled to the brim with raunchy teenagers.

“— _I’m just saying_ ,” Mabel continued, as they rounded the street corner. “That everyone gets nervous about stuff like that. Heck, I’m pretty nervous about that right now. Can you believe it? Ha ha, me of all people, nervous about people? It’s crazy! It’s just we’ve never been invited to a party this big before and it’s all so new and exciting I can’t wai—WHOA MY GOSH, HOLY GUACAMOLE, LOOK AT ALL THOSE CARS!”

She gaped at the line of parked vehicles that stretched down the street and curved off onto the next. It was clear out of the many expensive houses situated on the block which was party central tonight. About halfway down the street a house was lit up from the inside and bleeding yellow light out on to the yard. A few teenagers could be seen mingling around on the freshly cut lawn. Dipper felt his palms start to perspire.

He could face a horde of supernatural creatures, but not a couple handfuls of normal teenagers. Go figure.

The sight seemed to have the opposite effect on Mabel. She squealed and grabbed his wrist, carting them both as quickly as she could down the sidewalk. Before he knew it, Mabel was clumsily pulling him up the stairs and he was banging his big toe on the last step and then they were both standing at the front door, staring at the brass knocker.

Mabel eagerly reached for it but Dipper intercepted her. “Wait. Remember the plan.”

“Find the monster dude, chop him up, stay focused, blah blah.”

“Mabel, this is serious.”

“I am being serious!” She paused and tilted her head to the side, scrutinizing him. “You remembered to put on deodorant before you left, right?”

“What? Yeah, why—Ahh, Mabel!” She had grabbed his arms and lifted them up for inspection.

“Ah, yes, just as I suspected. Sweaty already. “ She let his hands drop and then touched the tip of his nose. “Boop. Ha ha.”

“We need a signal,” Dipper huffed, trying to veer her back on course. He prayed none of the teenagers outside had witnessed that little exchange. “Like when we think we’ve found the guy?”

“How about ‘aaahhh’?”

He gave her his best _I-cannot-believe-we-are-related-why-do-I-ask-you-for-anything_ look.

Mabel snapped her fingers. “Cheese turnips!” When his look only hardened, she explained herself. “Think about it! Who’s going to shout something like that ever? No one! But is it something you _could_ shout at a crazy teen party, as opposed to, say, taxes or something? Yeah! It’s perfect! And this way we’ll know for sure it’s us!”

“That…” Dipper thought about it. “That’s actually really smart. Ridiculous, but smart.”

Mabel held herself up a little higher. “I know. I try.” She grabbed the brass knocker and rapped on the door three times.

“Okay,” Dipper muttered within the few seconds they had left. “We have a plan and a signal. Just remember to—“

“—Stay focused.” Mabel shot him a braces-free grin. “Don’t worry, bro. I got dis. Just follow my lead.”

‘ _Somehow I’m not comforted_.’ Dipper thought to himself, just as someone finished fumbling with the doorknob inside the house.

The door swung open and a grinning blonde appeared before them, clad in a sparkling halter top and heels. She squealed at the sight of Mabel and flung her arms around her, and both girls started hopping up and down on the porch. Dipper thought that this was kind of odd; he was pretty sure Mabel wasn’t close friends with their hostess, Marcie. Marcie O’Malley. Queen Bee and the second richest person the Pines knew, only next to Pacifica Northwest, who evidently also happened to be the Queen Bee type. Luckily their time with Pacifica was limited to the summers. Marcie they were stuck with every other season of the year in Piedmont.

Nonetheless, Dipper forced a smile when Marcie finally pulled away and took sight of him behind his sister. “And _this_ must be your brother,” Marcie said, and the way her red lip curled as she took him in made a sudden heat rise to his face.

Was she checking him _out_?

Mabel made a surprised noise. “Oh, right! Intro time! Dipper, Marcie; Marcie, Dipper!” She gestured to each of them in turn. Dipper held out his hand and Marcie accepted it with a shake.

“We’ve sort of met before,” he said. “We go to the same school together.”

“Well, obviously,” Marcie said, and he felt his face grow hotter. _Way to state the obvious, idiot_. She pulled the door open wider for the twins to step through. “C’mon in, guys. You haven’t missed much. The party is just getting started.”

 

Naturally the twins were separated almost immediately.

Dipper was instantly aware of the bass growling beneath his feet like a ravenous animal, and Mabel, her attention span matching that of a sparrow (on good days), peeling away from him to flutter off into the forests of twisting bodies. He tried not to be too bothered by it. This was the plan, after all; to split up and keep an eye out for anything odd or stranger than the norm for teenage parties. The second Mabel’s warmth slipped away from him though, he had to fight the urge to cower away like a child missing his security blanket.

This house was so big.

There were so many people he didn’t know.

A light touch on his elbow made him jump. “You okay?” Marcie raised her voice to be heard over the commotion. “You look kinda sick.”

“I’m fine,” he lied, just as loud. “Just got dizzy for a sec. Sorry.”

“Can I get you something to drink?”

“I’m alright right now, thanks.”

Marcie frowned, but didn’t press him any further. As she walked away, Dipper thought that maybe he’d judged her too harshly; maybe he’d been wrong about her. The concern in her eyes had been genuine enough. He watched the dark sea of bodies swallow up her luminescent hair like a dying star, until he stood small and alone at the mouth of this grand hall. He’d driven away the only person who had seemed remotely interested in conversing with him. Great.

Stifling a sigh, Dipper turned and started off in the opposite direction Mabel had disappeared in. Oh well. He was here to monster hunt, not socialize. He was here to save lives, not learn about them. He had a job to do.

Who cared what other people thought, right?

They were just tangled seaweed in the ocean, a minor inconvenience. He would wade right through them.

 

“—and then I said, who cares, right? But I actually did care. I mean, this is my best friend! My pet pig! How could I just leave him behind? How could I break his heart like that?”

A semi-circle of wary teens exchanged glances with each other as Mabel Pines’ incredibly loud rant continued. “It was so unfair! I swear I was crying forever; even my bro, Dipper, couldn’t cheer me up. But then I got a snap chat from my friend, Wendy, and it was Waddles! She promised to keep sending me pictures of him every day during her shifts at the Mystery Shack, and things have been awesome ever since! Check it out!” She whipped out her phone and displayed a lovely background picture of her precious pet adorned in a top hat and little black suit. Some gazes softened. Most just grew warier, like Mabel Pines was a rare species they had never stumbled across before.

An arm slithered around her neck and steered her away from the group. Marcie paused to throw a tight smile over her shoulder before turning to Mabel again. Her lip curled in disgust. “C’mon, Pines, you have to do better than that.”

“What?”

“That.” Marcie pointed to Mabel’s cellphone. “Nobody talks about stuff like that! Seriously, Mabel, I thought we were over this. Keep the weird stuff to a minimum.”

A cloud passed over Mabel’s sunny smile. “But I…I like that stuff.”

“And no one else does.”

Another girl started to slide around their huddle. She noticed Mabel’s sweater and did a double take. “Wow that is such an adorable sweater! Where did you get it?” she gushed.

“I made it!” exclaimed Mabel proudly, all white teeth and dimples.

The teen blinked. “Oh, that’s…cool.”

She walked away.

“See?” Marcie gestured furiously. “Look, I’m not trying to be mean or anything, but maybe you should keep the talking to a minimum. Have a drink. Dance. It looks like you need it.” With a flourish, Marcie was gone again, only light traces of vanilla and hairspray lingering in her wake.

Mabel pocketed her phone. Frustrated tears were fighting to well up in her eyes, but she swallowed down the tide. Mabel liked Marcie--she was a good friend usually-- but when she got around other people like this, it was like Marcie wasn’t…Marcie. She was replaced with a razor-sharp tongue and perfectly polished claws, and they had dug deep into Mabel tonight.

Her eyes wandered back to the group she’d been chatting with before. They’d filed in around each other and completed the circle and it didn’t look like there was room for one more. Forcing her shoulders back, optimistic thoughts spilling forth into her head like glitter glue, Mabel skipped off to where the edge of the multi-colored dance floor could be seen, a pulsing heartbeat in the far room.

Oh well. The night was still young. There were still plenty of new people to meet.

And who cared what other people thought, right?

Almost as soon as the thought passed through her head, a boy peeked around the open doorway and winked as Mabel approached. The shifting lights painted a strong jaw, soft lips, eyes that shimmered different colors; blue, purple, red.

Mabel giggled.

 

“Dude, go long!” A husky voice shouted, followed by the tell-tale shattering of expensive glass upon the marble floor.

Dipper maneuvered around the mess as inebriated teenagers gathered around to whoop and cheer. The night was passing without event. With no supernatural signs in sight, he’d caved and broken the promise he’d made to himself not to drink. It was just one cup, just a bit of alcohol to calm his racing nerves. And in the end, he wound up socializing in the less noisy parts of the house.

It had occurred to him that night that he was, well, _attractive_ to female eyes. The number of coy fingers that had slid up his arm or coiled around a strand of hair had left him blushing and flustered on more than one account. He couldn’t say he disliked the attention, but the lack of supernatural weirdness kept knocking on the back of his head as if it were the front door. He couldn’t shake the bad feeling he had. Something was off. Mabel and he had tracked the monster to this house, and their tracking was never wrong. The monster was _here_ , somewhere.

He had to find Mabel. Maybe she’d had better luck than he did and actually had a lead.

He was so lost in thought he failed to notice the other body in front of him until he’d jostled against them.

“Sorry!” Dipper apologized. “Aw, geez, I hope I didn’t get anything on you,” he said, moving his drink away.

A short curly head popped up and then he found himself looking down into the prettiest pair of dark eyes he’d ever seen. “You’re fine!” the girl said. “I think your cup is pretty empty anyway.”

The bass was positively thunderous on this side of the house. Dipper strained to hear her. “What?”

“I said, I think your cup is pretty empty anyway!”

“Oh! Well…yeah!” He chuckled nervously. “I, uh, wasn’t really planning on drinking a lot!”

“Drinking isn’t really my thing!” She smiled, and wow, her smile was even prettier than her eyes. “Maybe we should…”

“Go somewhere quieter?”

“Yeah!”

She took his arm and led him into the next room, where the music was considerably softer in volume. “I’m Rashel,” she said, at a normal indoor volume.

“Dipper.”

“A nickname I take it?”

“Yeah. I’ve had it since I was young.”

Rashel smiled again. “That’s kind of cute.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, blushing. “Not when you’re 16, almost 17 years old.”

“Nah, I think it’s still cute.”

He smiled.

They continued chatting. Dipper learned that Rashel planned to study astrophysics in college, and was already being offered scholarships. She had an older brother. She loved dogs. And she thought he was funny. (Ha, nobody ever laughed at his bad jokes!) It seemed impossible that he’d missed meeting an amazing girl like this at school.

At the mention of her brother, the twin’s current predicament came flooding back to him. Shit, he forgot to find Mabel.

“Hey, Rashel?” She watched him curiously. “You haven’t seen my sister around by chance, have you? About yea tall. Looks just like me. We’re twins, actually.”

Recognition flickered through her dark eyes. “Yeah. You know what; I think I saw a girl like that heading upstairs with Trevor a little bit ago. They, uh…couldn’t really keep their hands off of each other, if you know what I mean.”

Dipper worked to keep his voice controlled. “Is that so?” Seriously? Mabel was _seriously_ hooking up with some guy during their monster hunt? Unbelievable.

Rashel chuckled softly. “I guess you’re one of those over protective bros, huh?”

“My sister’s not exactly the best judge of character.”

“Don’t worry. She’ll be okay.”

The knocking was sudden fists pounding the back of his skull. Something _really_ wasn’t right here. Mabel was a lot of things, but she wasn’t careless without reason in the middle of danger. There was always a method to her madness, however hard it was to see. What if she was drunk? What if the guy was taking advantage of her and she wasn’t even aware? Dipper wouldn’t be able to hear her scream the signal from here.

He slammed his drink down on the nearest countertop. “I-I have to go.”

“Dipper? Is everything alright?” Rashel grabbed his arm but he shook her off. “Wait, can I at least get your number? It…was really fun, talking to you.”

He whipped out a pen and his investigation notebook and quickly scribbled down his number. “I’m really _really_ sorry, Rashel. You are totally awesome and hopefully we can talk again later, okay? Cause I want to too.” He ripped off the piece of paper and handed it to her with an apologetic smile.

“I’ll text you,” Rashel said.

“Counting on it.”

Dipper turned his back on her and rushed to the main entrance of the house. The crowds were still like seaweed but he was water now, weaving expertly around elbows and under arms and against chests. They paid him no attention and he to them. He manipulated these currents. They moved for him.

At last he burst into the house’s grand entranceway. Glass from a chandelier above his head littered the floor and shimmered like crystals. Leaping on to the first step, he took the curved staircase two steps at a time, his hand already holding his side pocket where, if he pressed his fingers, he’d feel the cool burn of his knife through his khaki shorts. It was comforting.

The second floor landing opened up in two different directions. Much like the rest of the house, both halls stretched on with closed door upon closed door, but there was no one he could see immediately up here. The music was entirely muffled through the carpeting. The last thing he wanted to do was open up each of these doors to figure out which room his sister and _Trevor_ were busy in, but it was looking like his only option. He had to remain stealthy. Yelling would blow his cover. Heart banging in his ribcage, sending silent apologies to every couple he was about to peek in on, Dipper grasped the first door’s knob.

“God, help me,” he prayed.

 

His name was Trevor Duncan.

He was 6’1”, played baseball, and was totally smokin’ hot.

Mabel giggled against his lips, and wound her fingers tighter through his short cropped hair.

Oh yeah, and he was a super _duper_ good kisser.

His big hands slid around her back and pulled her flush against him, eliciting a moan from her quickly reddening lips. Every so often he would nudge at the lower hem of her sweater, and his cool fingers would brush her bare skin, silently asking permission to slip underneath her clothes and hold her tighter.

Well, duh.

When at last she had to break away or face oxygen deprivation, her hands slid up Trevor’s chest, pushing him back only slightly. “We should probably go somewhere more private,” she gasped, still trying to catch her breath.

Trevor nosed against her neck. “Funny,” he said, peppering her neck with slick kisses. “I was about to say the same thing.”

Mabel grinned, and, when she was sure he couldn’t see, touched the dagger sheathed against her forearm, hidden beneath her sweater sleeve. Boys were so predictable. She knew every one’s weakness.

They stumbled up the curling staircase, still locked in each other’s embrace. Marcie’s house was beautiful; glimmering and polished white. It reminded Mabel of princesses and lost kingdoms, something out of its world that belonged entirely to a fairytale.

Upstairs seemed to stretch on forever. Trevor decided on one of the many assorted doors, and they fell back into a bedroom together, the door not even entirely shut before Mabel was pulling him closer and slamming it closed with her backside.

It’s a shame this wouldn’t be able to continue. He really was a cute guy.

She’d thought about telling Dipper that she’d found the monster. She knew he was going to be pissed when he realized she hadn’t told him. It had been obvious after Trevor displayed his extreme strength for her (and also sneezed fire) that he wasn’t quite what he seemed. But then she’d come up with a plan, and decided to have a little fun, cause why not? Whatever Trevor was, was human enough. Might as well make the best of it.

Mabel’s arms slid from his neck and down around his waist, where her fingers pretended to toy with the hem of his t-shirt much like his had played with hers earlier. Trevor got the message. He nudged her arms away and began pulling his shirt off. With her hands at her sides and out of sight, Mabel began slowing unsheathing her knife from under sleeve.

It was nearly free when a piercing scream ricocheted from down the hall. “EW! GET OUT OF HERE, PERVERT!” She lost her grip on the knife and it clattered to the hardwood floor.

Trevor, free of his shirt, followed her gaze to the fallen weapon.

Everything happened very quickly after that.

Mabel kicked his legs out from under him and lunged for her weapon. She managed to get one good swipe in across his face before Trevor grabbed her ankle and tossed her across the room like a ragdoll. She slid until her back collided with a dresser. Her spine groaned in protest.

Trevor growled, and his once pretty face contorted into an ugly snarl. His brilliant blue eyes were a boiling crimson red. “Stupid, bitch. That was my favorite shirt.” She realized, during her sliding, she’d kept a tight grip on her knife and torn straight through the fabric laying abandoned on the ground.

She edged at a piece with the tip of her knife. “It wasn’t really that cute,” Mabel decided. “Red isn’t your color.”

Trevor charged and Mabel rolled out of the way, back on to her feet. Heat burned through her sweater sleeve and ripped through her skin, leaving ugly blisters behind. She grabbed her arm, moaning a little. The spot she’d been in moments ago was now charred and smoking.

Her chocolate eyes widened. “What the freakin heck _are_ you?”

He whirled around, and she watched his eyes harden back to their normal icy hue. He flashed her a weird smile that was all teeth, no tongue. “Your worst nightmare.”

Mabel snorted. “Oh, please, Mr. Firebreath. I’ve met worse than a cutie like you.” She dodged another flaming blast then lunged forward, raking the knife down his forearm. Blood, _human_ blood, exploded through the cut and spilled over his skin.

She stared, dumbfounded for a second too long. Trevor lashed out and grabbed her wrist, twisting until it snapped like a twig. Mabel screeched, and the knife was plucked from her useless fingers and thrown across the floor.

“You think a little knife is going to do anything against me?” Trevor demanded, shaking her shattered wrist.

She gave a hoarse cry. “Cheese turnips!”

Trevor paused and stared at Mabel like she was insane, which normally would’ve been hilarious, even a snap chat worthy moment, if her wrist wasn’t too broken to hold a phone and she weren’t fighting through her tears to scream. Oh, God, she was too far away, wasn’t she? Dipper couldn’t hear her like this. He was probably still downstairs. Maybe she should have just stuck to, you know, _not_ coming up with side plans.

She tried to project her voice as much as she could. Each time it became shriller. “Cheese turnips! Cheese turnips! Cheese turnips! _Cheese turnips--!”_

Her next scream was trapped in her throat as Trevor’s hands closed around her neck and _squeezed._ “What the hell is that? Some kind of code name?” He snarled. He lifted her off the ground and Mabel saw stars dancing around the dim bedroom. “I know there’s more than one of you here. Where is he, huh? WHERE IS HE?”

Mabel attempted a weak kick at his face, but her foot didn’t quite make it. She was losing feeling all over.

And then suddenly she was flying. She landed on her side against the hardwood floor, long hair sweeping across her face like a curtain. Another guy’s voice growled out, “ _Get your hands off my sister!”_

If she had any air left in her lungs, she would have sobbed in relief.

Mabel pushed the tangled mass out of her face and found her brother wrestling with the monster on the ground. His knife was out. The muscles in his arms flexed as he strained against Trevor’s strength. His blade was a mere centimeters away from slitting the creature’s throat when Trevor’s crystal eyes melted down into a bloody red.

Panic ripped through her. “Dipper!” she screamed, or tried to, the only sound that came out was a wheezed, “Dip!”

He took the message and rolled off of Trevor just before he blew a column of fire right where Dipper had been sitting.

Dipper stared at the other boy, panting hard. “What the holy _hell_ \--? “

“The blood!” Mabel tried again and winced when air sawed against her sore throat. “It’s human!”

“That’s definitely not human, Mabel!”

“No!” she pushed herself up and the bones in her wrist screamed. “Possession! A dem—“

Trevor’s foot connected with her jaw and she fell slack against the floor.

 

“Mabel!”

In a flash Trevor stood towering before Dipper again. What had his twin been trying to tell him? Possession? Trevor was a-a-

A demon.

He raised his knife in one trembling hand. Trevor took one look at him and barked out a laugh.

“So _this_ is what they send to fight me, nowadays? A scared kid and his little slut of a sister.” He kneed Dipper in the chest and tossed him up against the wall.

A rib or two cracked, and Dipper was ashamed to admit how quickly the pain winded him. He struggled to breathe. Damn demon strength. “Don’t talk about her that way,” Dipper ground through his teeth. If the demon wanted to insult him then fine, but involve Mabel and there would be hell to pay.

“Aw, what’s the matter?” Trevor—no, the demon, smirked. “Don’t like the fact that sissy over there likes to play the game? She’s good at it, too. Knows just where to hit it so—“

Dipper lunged forward and punched him in the jaw. Trevor reeled backward, but Dipper grasped his bleeding arm and raked his knife across the demon’s chest. He intended to carve an expel sigil in the demon’s skin, but then its shocked expression morphed into another bout of laughter. “Whoo! By all means keep beating up the innocent kid! By the time I’m finished here his body will have bled out anyway.”

Dipper paused, some of his fury faltering. Crap, it was right. He was hurting Trevor’s body.

The demon tsk’d. “You’re too soft, Dip.” It grabbed Dipper by the shirt front and hurled him into a bed footboard. He felt the jagged corner rip at his shirt. “I gotta say,” the demon continued, grabbing and throwing him into a dresser next. The wood splintered and broke under his weight. “I was expecting more after all the stories I heard about you two. _The Pines family_. Pathetic.”

Dipper groaned, pushing off chunks of wood. He hadn’t come prepared to deal with a demon. He’d been so sure the monster they were dealing with was a shape-shifter; he’d left all his demon warding crap at home with the Journals. He had to think of something. He needed a back-up plan. Maybe it he kept this thing talking a little longer…

“S-stories?” inquired Dipper. He felt around for his knife. Aw, shit, where did that fall to?

“Oh _sure_ ,” the demon said with mock impression. “You two are practically _celebrities_ among us supernatural folk. Heard all the stories about your little summer adventures. Everyone said you were all grown up, but you still look like a couple of scrawny brats to me.”

“And you still look like a self-entitled dickhead to me.”

He expected Trevor to lunge for him but instead the demon opened his mouth and released a glowing column of flames. Dipper rolled across the wood, narrowly avoiding getting burnt to a crisp. He came up standing weaponless, panting hard.

As usual everything was going exactly the way he’d planned it to.

Trevor moved with inhuman speed and backhanded him. He grabbed Dipper by the jacket collar and pulled him close. “Watch it, kid,” he hissed. “You don’t have any idea what you’re up against.”

Dipper groaned. “No, I don’t. Care to enlighten me? It’s someone with a big sense of their own importance, apparently.”

The demon opened its mouth, probably to scream at him again, and then something like amusement extinguished the fire in its eyes. Trevor’s lips curled into a smirk. “You’re clever, kid. I’ll give you that. You think I can’t tell when you’re trying to bait an answer out of me? “ Its fingers crept around his neck, tightening once, just to let Dipper know much of his life rested in this demon’s hands right now. “How’s that great uncle of yours doing? Huh, Dip? That useless handyman? Little red? Good, I hope.”

Dipper’s heart skipped a beat. “What did you do to them?”

“Damn, you really _haven’t_ been paying attention, have you?” Trevor kneed him in the ribs and then gave him a good shove back. Dipper tripped over something and smacked his head against the wall. It felt like his cranium was splitting open down the middle. He saw the world in fractured pieces.

He realized the something he’d sprawled over top of was Mabel.

The demon had turned its attention away from him and was staring out at the bedroom door. A few beats of silence passed, and then it nodded. “Aaaand I guess that’s my cue.” It turned back to the twins, shrugging casually. “What, you think I came alone? Looks like you have a lot of catching up to do. I’ll leave you two to it.”

“W-wait!” Dipper’s head was spinning. It was just…leaving? Just like that? But he needed more answers!

The demon grinned so wide the skin around Trevor’s mouth began to rip. “Big things are coming, kid. Bigger than anything you might’ve dealt with in the past. I suggest you do your research.”

Trevor’s eyes pulsed red once, and then his body went limp and collapsed. The demon was gone.

“Damn,” Dipper grunted. He had the unspeakable urge to kick the unconscious body at his feet. He fought it back. This body was just an innocent kid now, who was already bleeding profusely from cuts all over. He couldn’t do that.

He raked a hand through his sweat soaked hair and surveyed the damage. The room was trashed. Expensive furniture pieces and other decorations were over turned and broken. The shiny hard wood floors were scorched and smoking in more than one area. The pristine white bedding was now the color of ash, and by the window, a curtain was smoldering.

A weak groan sounded from underneath him and his heart seized up in his chest. Mabel.

Dipper scrambled off of her, wincing as the sudden change in position stabbed his ribs. “Mabel?” He touched her shoulder and tried to roll her over gently. “You okay?”

Her normally flushed colored face was paper white. Blood crusted her nose and the length of her jaw, where an angry bruise was beginning to blossom black and blue. Hs heartbeat pounded like a drum in his ears. She looked terrible.

“Mabel?” Dipper shook her a little. His hands shook. “Come on. Get up. I didn’t mean to sit on you.”

She released a louder groan, and he breathed a sigh of relief. “Everything huuuurts.” She peered up at him through half-lidded eyes. “Was I ran over by a truck? Pretty sure I was ran over by a truck. I hope it looked cool.”

He was so relieved he didn’t bother correcting her grammar. “Can you stand up?”

“I don’t know.” The ghost of a smile slipped across her face. “Heh. You’re a peeping tom, Dip.”

He was about to retort back when the bedroom door banged open wide. “What the _hell_ is going on in here?!”

Speak of the Devil.

Dipper instantly recognized the fiery redhead fuming in the doorway from one of the couples he’d peeked in on earlier. Normally he’d be incredibly embarrassed about an encounter like this but he was too rattled up to care. Red recognized him too. Her glare zeroed in on him lighting quick. “You!” She screamed, stalking over to him. “Where the hell were you raised, asshole, huh? A barn? Don’t you know better than to—“

Then she seemed to notice the lack of movement coming from Trevor’s unconscious body. The blood drained from her face. The scream died on her lips.

Dipper imagined how this all must look to her. Trevor unconscious. Mabel near unconscious. All of them bruised and bloody, but Dipper more awake than the rest. He cringed. “Listen, this isn’t what it looks like. I need you to call a hospital. This guy,” he gestured to Trevor. “He needs help.”

If Red had been any sort of intoxicated before, she was sober now, and to Dipper’s relief, didn’t start screaming again. Instead she turned and fled the room. He wasn’t sure how to take that.

Behind him Mabel had sat up. She wasn’t laughing anymore. “We’re screwed, bro,” she said.

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” muttered Dipper. “C’mon, there’s another threat still here. We have to find it.”

 

“Sorry, I didn’t tell you it was Trevor,” Mabel shouted to her brother over the music. They were sprinting through the house, looking for any more signs of danger. As far as Mabel could see there was nothing, but that didn’t stop Dipper from pulling her along with her good hand at break neck speed. She figured he had to be just as disoriented as she felt, the world was spinning all topsy turvy under her feet, but whatever exchange had gone on between Trevor and he had really freaked the ol’ Dipster out.

He sounded frustrated with her. “I don’t care about that right now, Mabel! I need you to think. Where did you first meet the dem—uh, Trevor?”

“The dance floor,” she answered immediately. If people noticed the twins’ haggard states, they didn’t comment on them, but Mabel felt like all eyes were on her now, and not in a good way.

Dipper steered them in the direction where the bass was the loudest. As soon as the flashing lights came into view he swore loudly. “Sweet Moses, that’s bright.”

Mabel’s eyes watered. Yeah, her pounding head really wasn’t digging those rainbows now.

“Okay,” Dipper yelled over the noise. “Something in there is bad. I don’t know what. I can’t think—“

“Does the music feel louder to you?” Mabel interrupted. Her feet were practically bouncing off the ground to the beat.

“Of course it sounds louder! We’re closer to the stereo and we’re concussed and—Wait, did you say _feels_ louder?” Dipper’s eyes lit up. “Oh!”

“What?” Mabel rubbed her head. “And I don’t think concussed is a word.”

“It is a word and the stereo, Mabel! We’ve been looking for a person when really…it’s a thing. A weapon!”

Dipper had totally lost her at this point and she didn’t have the energy to keep annoying him with more questions. He looked her up and down worriedly. “Hey, you okay?”

“No,” Mabel told him honestly. She couldn’t see straight and the temperature in Marcie’s house was reaching boiling conditions. Or maybe that was just her skin. Did she have a fever? Could a person even _get_ a fever from being burned?

Dipper’s frown deepened. “I have to go shut off the music. Can you try to get some people out of the house while I do?”

Anything to get away from those crazy lights. “Yes, sir.” Mabel saluted weakly. Dipper cracked a half-hearted smile.

“Awesome. Be careful, okay?” He turned and dashed off on to the dancefloor.

Mabel turned and wandered off to the front of the house. She felt as if she were walking in a dream. Reality’s edges were soft and blurry like a damp photograph. A mound of curly hair rose up in front of her eyes.

“Hey! Looks like Dipper found you.” The girl with curly hair smiled at Mabel.

Mabel quirked an eyebrow. “You…you know my bro?”

The girl’s smile turned bashful. “Well, we were just talking a bit earlier. He was really worried about you.” Her gaze took all of Mabel in then, and she made a choked sound. “Wow, oh my God, are you okay?”

Mabel would have to tease Dipper about his flirtations with this girl later. She cut right to the chase. “Uh, you trust Dipper, right?” Mabel asked.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Then I need your help. There’s something dangerous in this house and we need to get everyone out, like, ASAP.”

Mystery girl frowned. “I…Okay. Okay, I believe you.”

“Seriously, just like that?”

“Well, I don’t know if you know this, but you _are_ covered in like a layer of soot.”

Mabel smiled for the first time in hours. “Dip picked a good girl to get flirty with,” she didn’t realize she’d said it out loud until the girl laughed.

“I’m Rashel,” she said.

“Mabel.”

“Alright, Mabel, so what’s the plan? How are we going to get everyone out of the house?”

“We don’t have to get _everyone_ out. We just have to get word around so when Dipper—“

The music cut off abruptly. A startled scream came from the back of the house.

“You know what?” muttered Mabel. “Never mind.”

 

In retrospect, losing his temper and shouting that there was a bomb connected to the stereo system probably hadn’t been the best idea.

It certainly was efficient however.

“What?” Came a woman’s shrill voice from the crowd. “Ohmygod. Ohmy _god_!”

The muscled DJ released the grip he had on the back of Dipper’s jacket and Dipper fell back on his butt. The DJ backed away from him fearfully.

“Help!” Someone else shrieked. He realized it was Red making yet another reappearance. “Help! There’s a bomb! He’s a terrorist! _Run_!”

“ _What?_ ” exclaimed Dipper. More teenagers had emerged from neighboring rooms to watch the scene unfold. “No! No, I’m not! I-I’m trying to save your lives!”

“That’s what they all say!” Some guy screamed from the back of the room.

“No wonder he doesn’t have any friends!” Another pointed out. “It’s always those loner ones you have to watch out for!”

“I smell smoke!”

“Run! Run for your lives!”

Teenagers stampeded out the doors. Dipper ran to the front of the surround system’s small raised platform and picked up a fallen microphone. “I’m not a terrorist!” he shouted after them. “I’m not a-a. Aw, fuck. Just everybody get out, okay? _Run!_ ”

When the last of the teenagers emptied out the doors, he turned and quickly began examining the stereo. His head pounded like a nail being hammered into the ground. There had to be something, maybe a back panel the bomb was hidden in. His nails scratched at a small electrical opening.

“Bravo, Dipper Pines.” A voice spoke from behind him. He whirled around. Red was standing there, smirking coolly. “Seems you’ve found the surprise. Too late though. The trigger’s already been pulled. Only a few minutes more until this pretty house is blown to pieces.”

A sinking feeling pulled at his gut. The other demon’s words came back to him. “ _And that’s my cue_.” The song had already played.

He was too late.

Dipper viscously tore the panel off. Red clicked her tongue. “You could waste your time failing to disable that. Or you could go save your sister.” She leaned in close, breathing down his neck. “You know she’s not outside, right? Not when her little boyfriend is still bleeding upstairs.”

Dipper’s breath hitched in his throat. Oh, God. She didn’t, she wouldn’t…

She would. It was exactly what Mabel would do.

He stared at the glowing numbers on the bomb. Nearly five minutes left.

“Tick tock.” Red taunted.

Dipper swung his elbow back into her chest and then spun around, trapping her against the wall by her throat. “Disable this, now!” he barked.

“You think I know how?” She laughed gleefully. “No way am I sticking around for this.” The body went limp in his arms.

He couldn’t help it; he slammed the girl’s body against the wall with a furious shout. How much time did he have left now? Two, three minutes?

Dipper let the girl’s body slide to the floor and ran. He barreled to the front of the house and up the staircase and nearly fell over stumbling into the bedroom he’d fought in earlier. This constant dizziness was starting to make him nauseous.

Mabel was kneeling by Trevor’s broken body. Tears ran down her dirty face. “Dip, I-I don’t think he’s doin so hot.”

“I…” Dipper’s mouth ran dry. The other boy didn’t appear to be moving at all. “Mabel, we don’t have time. We have to go.”

“But we can’t-we can’t just leave him.”

“Let me see your grappling hook.”

“No.”

Dipper reached past her and tried wrestling the grappling hook out of her pocket. Even burned and broken, his sister’s grip was firm. “He’ll die!” she shouted.

“He’s already dead!”

Truth was, he didn’t know that for sure; Trevor could very well still be alive. But his sister mattered to him more than some kid he’d never even met until tonight. He wasn’t proud of it, but his priorities weren’t about to start changing now, not when Mabel looked about 3 seconds away from hitting the floor. If he had time, maybe, to find the bomb before and work at disabling it then things would be different, he could’ve saved this kid. But he didn’t. He was stupid and fell for a trick and now this innocent guy was going to die and that girl downstairs was too and, yeah, this blood was on his hands.

_In t-minus--_

It made him sick to his stomach.

“Mabel, give me the god damn grappling hook _now_ —“

“No!”

Did this make him a bad person?

.

.

.

He felt bad. Really, he did. He--

 

 

It was the loudest sound she had ever heard.

When she was younger, she had often wondered what it would be like to be closer to fireworks on the 4th of July. ‘ _That’s dumb_ ,’ an 8 year old Dipper had told her, waving a sparkler around like a wand. ‘ _You’re afraid of them. They’d just be louder up close’_

 _‘You don’t know that_.’

‘ _Uh, yeah, I do. That’s how sound works.’_

_‘Well, I’m gonna prove you wrong.’_

Needless to say when the mini explosions began cutting across the twilight sky, she had hid behind his back and watched through the safety of his neck and shoulder. She had been scared.

She imagined that this was what she was witnessing behind her as her brother swung them out the two-story window of Marcie O’Malley’s home, a thousand fireworks being shot off into the night sky all at once, up close for her to hear.

And Mabel Catherine Pines was, indeed, terrified, just like he thought she would be.

 

Her grappling hook line didn’t hold.

Fire melted its metal claws and left them at the mercy of gravity. They free fell most of the way down with the other chunks of burning debris. It wasn’t a soft landing.

It was a quick fall, at least.

 

A single high note pierced her eardrums.

Dipper had taken the brunt of the fall, she knew. Now he was shielding her body with his own. The grass her nose was pressed into smelled like ash and springtime and she didn’t think those things should go together.

Eventually he rolled away and collapsed in the grass beside her. Mabel stared up at the burning wreckage of Marcie O’Malley’s home. It looked unrecognizable; a monstrous orange and yellow flame had come and devoured the fairytale home whole, and somewhere inside Trevor was being turned to dust with the rest of the hopeless dream. Her eyes stung. Against the night sky the waving flames were blinding to peer at.

Slowly she turned her head toward Dipper. Tears slid down the bridge of her nose. His clothes were smoking. He wasn’t moving, but she could see a slight- _slight_ -rise and fall to his chest. At least he was alive.

Mabel stretched her fingers out for his hand. Her hearing still hadn’t returned and growing panic was waking her body up. Had her eardrums ruptured? Was this permanent? What if Dipper was trying to talk to her? She wouldn’t be able to understand him.

He laced his fingers through hers and gave a gentle squeeze. She felt herself choke on a sob. He got it. Somehow, he got it.

Rising to her feet was like carrying the weight of the world. Her knees shook and the world spun all willy nilly around her. Pain radiated down her spine and nearly knocked her over again. She gave a great gasp she couldn’t hear. Once again, her brother was there to catch her.

Leaning together, they slowly stumbled into the front yard. Mabel felt sound return, and with it sight, and feeling. She was convinced her body was on fire.

Pandemonium ruled the front of the O’Malley household. Teenagers were sprinting for their cars, phones locked to their ears, or just running through the yard and down the streets screaming. Red and blue lights flashed in the near distance.

Someone shoved her from behind. Mabel’s hands flew out to keep her face from smacking the sidewalk. A thousand knives stabbed her right wrist. An agonized scream ripped its way past her burning throat.

Dipper was at her side in an instant. “What the hell is your problem?” he demanded.

Marcie appeared in her line of vision. Mascara was smudged around her eyes like she’d been crying. “You!” She shrieked, or Mabel thought she did. Noise was still muffled like a numb hand wrapped in a mitten. “This is all your fault!”

“Marcie, I-I’m so sorry—“

“Save it! You destroyed my house! I know it was you, you and your bastard brother!”

Mabel’s voice wavered. “W-we didn’t.”

“Liar!”

“Can’t you see that she’s hurt?” Dipper interceded. “Why the hell would she hurt herself just to ruin your dumb party?”

Marcie rounded on him. The fire in her eyes burned hotter than her house. “A lot of people are hurt, _Dipper_ , thanks to you two! Or have you not noticed everyone losing their fucking minds over there? I should sue! I could sue you for everything you have! Or have both of you sent to Juvi!”

Dipper looked beyond irritated. “Alright then, let’s see the proof,” he ground through his teeth. “Oh, that’s right, you don’t have any. Not enough to form a substantial court case. Not enough to warrant a lawyer.”

Marcie stomped her foot. “WHATEVER!” She shrieked. “I know it was you two! You’re freaks! You’re both freaks and you always will be! Now get off my property _now!_ ”

Trembling arms helped Mabel up off the grass and led her as quickly as they could away from the scene, down the street. Dipper’s breathes stirred the hair by her ear. He didn’t say anything, and she was too stunned to form words. Mabel’s computing process had reached capacity for the night and was retreating into shut down mode. Dipper steered her into a darkened alleyway briefly as police sirens whirred by, and then before Mabel knew it she was collapsing into the passenger seat of their parked car and staring unseeing through the dirty windshield.

Dipper had his head rested back against the seat. His eyes were closed. A heavy coating of soot covered his face and body. His knuckles were gray instead of white where they gripped the steering wheel.

He was the first to break the silence. “I never liked her. She always reminded me too much of Pacifica.”

Mabel released a low whine through her teeth. She thought that she should be crying harder than this. Maybe she was. Maybe she just couldn’t feel it.

“That was uncalled for,” he continued, “What she said to you. She had no right—“

“Yes, she did,” Mabel choked. “Everything that happened…that’s all on us.”

“This was never going to be a normal party, Mabel—“

“But we weren’t supposed to burn her house down!” Mabel cried out. She coughed, her throat stinging. “We weren’t supposed to get anyone hurt! Or-or—“Her face disappeared completely within the folds of her soft sweater and, as much as it hurt, like any movement did, she was glad to be hidden.

Because that was just it, wasn’t it? It was never going to be a normal party. It was never going to be a normal night out. She had wanted to pretend for a night that she could just be a normal girl who went to normal weekend parties and had normal friends, but reality had charged in and crushed her dream, burned it and sprinkled the ashes on the ground.

They had chosen a life of mystery and danger when they were preteens, and at the time this had seemed fine, it was cool. She supposed sometimes it was still cool, training with weapons and all, but there was no off switch if she suddenly wanted to just go and hang out at the mall. The twins couldn’t just go back. They knew about monsters and the monsters knew about them. They were never going to be normal, not when the supernatural was constantly on their tails. It was as plain and simple as that.

Dipper sighed. “Aw, Mabel. C’mon, don’t go to Sweater Town…Its-It’ll be okay.”

Mabel squeezed her eyes shut against a sudden onslaught of tears. “Marcie is right, Dipper. We don’t belong,” her voice broke. “We are freak _s_.”

Her brother remained silent, and she supposed, a sob rising and cresting in her chest, that he didn’t have an argument for that.

Eventually he stuck the keys into the ignition and the car began to idle. He started driving and Mabel didn’t care where they were going; home, the hospital, Gravity Falls…she just wanted to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everybody! Happy new year! To kick in 2015, here's chapter two of Bump in the Night! 
> 
>    
>  _Mabel unfolded the paper and peeked at her drawing. She felt her blood turn to ice in her veins. Bill’s graphite eye seemed to watch her no matter which way she moved._
> 
> _“Just…don’t freak out, okay?” Mabel ventured. She glanced up at Dipper through her lashes. “Promise you won’t go totally cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs if I show you this.”_
> 
> _Dipper sighed, his patience clearly tried. “I promise.”_
> 
> _She slid the paper face down across the table the same way agents handled top secret files. Dipper rolled his eyes at her theatrics and picked it up. It wasn’t long before the color vanished from his face completely._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to clear up any confusion: this story takes place in early December of the Pines twins' senior year of high school; they're both roughly around 17 and a half years old. Wendy is in her third year of college, which makes her about 20 or 21. 
> 
> I do make reference to the Pines celebrating Christmas secularly. There's been some controversy lately over their religion, but Alex Hirsch himself has confirmed the Pines are canonly whatever religion the people please. I see them as Jewish people that celebrate a religious Hanukah and a non-religious Christmas. 
> 
> I already put this in the tags, but if not there are instances/references to the twins suffering from PTSD for anyone that's sensitive to that. Past events, some inferred and others canon moments from the show, are going to play a big role in this story (such as chapter 1's "big things are coming" which is a reference to something Bill Cipher has said on the show before). It's not exactly an AU, but there are alternate universe elements since the show isn't over yet.

Dipper had faced many disastrous monster hunts over the years, but this was by far the worst.

  
Forget the ache in his bones, the pounding in his head, the crushing guilt in his chest, and the dissatisfaction of the demons getting away. Waking his mother up with a phone call at 3 a.m. (way past their curfew by the way) to explain to her that Marcie O’Malley’s mansion had blown apart and he was rushing Mabel and himself to the Piedmont hospital was punishment enough. To make matters worse, his phone screen was cracked. It must’ve shattered after he’d leapt out a two-story window. So much for having any chance of getting to know Rashel better; the only way he’d been able to get ahold of his mom was because she was set as a speed dial.

  
He’d almost wanted to laugh. Honestly, what part of his life _hadn’t_ completely cracked at this point?

  
Maneuvering through the streets was torture. They weren’t busy, thank God, but every sign and streetlight seemed to be blurred and doubled. He had to squint his eyes just to read them, and more than once veered off road like his Grunkle Stan trying to drive with his cataracts. If there had been any doubts before, Dipper was sure he had a concussion.

  
At the thought of Stan, his fingers curled tighter around the leather steering wheel. He recalled the taunting voice of the demon, succeeding in distracting him. “‘ _How’s that great uncle of yours? That useless handyman? Little red?_ ’” As much as the demon had been trying to trip him up, Dipper didn’t think he’d been lying. Demons didn’t usually hold back truths they knew would hurt.

  
He’d have to call Stan the first chance he got.

  
And he’d have to tell Mabel everything once she woke up.

  
The ol’ mustang’s tires squealed across an unseen pothole in the ground and threw the twins momentarily out of their seats. He knew it wasn’t good to sleep with an untreated concussion. He was almost positive Mabel had one too. He’d done his best to talk her awake, but it was hard when he was driving. Eventually exhaustion had won out, and she’d passed out beside him for the second time that night.

  
To say Dipper was worried was like saying Stan loved money: There was no existing word strong enough to describe his emotions.

  
He didn’t think so much as feel one of his hands let go of the steering wheel and reach in the darkness to brush Mabel’s arm. A wave of heat seared his fingertips as if he’d touched a hot dish. Panic, sudden and overwhelming, sharpened some of the fuzziness in his head. Mabel let out a soft moan. It was only then that he realized he’d started to cling to her torn sleeve.

  
Dipper turned his eyes back to the road. It had become an expanse of utter blackness. Passing headlights in a neighboring lane would race forward and blind him for a moment like flames sparking off of metal before they sputtered out again. These circles of light were too close; they set him on fire, they stole away his breath, his feeling. He’d lost his grip on Mabel. His hand searched wildly out for her as another bright beam of light approached them. All he felt was hot air.

  
He shut his eyes against a blinding glare. “Car headlights aren’t blue,” Dipper muttered, his breath quickening. “They’re not blue. They’re not _blue_.” Hundreds of panicked voices were screaming in his aching head, only growing louder. Mabel was burning up and he couldn’t find her and _he killed those damn kids oh God_ —

  
His eyes snapped open. The screaming hadn’t been metaphorical; a horn was blaring so incredibly loud he hardly registered the truck it belonged to until he’d swerved back into the right lane, throwing Mabel against his side.

  
She smelt like sulfur and alcohol, an undesirable combination. “No, no more ketchup,” she mumbled into his shoulder deliriously. A hysterical laugh bubbled up inside him. Holy hell they almost died in a car crash and she had no idea.

  
 _They almost died in a car crash and she had no idea._

  
Dipper jostled his shoulder. He muttered her name. “Mabel…Mabes, wake up.” He could feel his anxiety cresting again like a wave. “You gotta wake up. Wake up. Please, wake up…”  


Was he even awake right now? Didn’t seem like it.

  
(Don’t look at those headlights.)

  
How long had he been driving? There were tears on his lips that tasted like dry blood.

  
A different light eventually shone out from the top of a hill, a roughly shaped E and R, and like a bright red beacon it guided Dipper out of the dark into safety.

* * *

 

Mabel scratched at her bandages. “You don’t think they’ll be too mad, do you?”

  
Dipper shifted on the bed across from her. As twin siblings they’d been permitted to share a hospital room by birthright. It had been three hours and counting since their arrival, and there was still no sign of their parents. He wasn’t sure if that was a blessing or a curse. Piedmont was a relatively small town. They were probably stuck in traffic, seeing as a number of kids from Marcie’s party had come rolling in after the twins on stretchers.

  
He tried not to feel too bad about that.

  
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Dipper told her. “And stop scratching at those.”

  
Mabel stuck her tongue out at him.

  
Her injuries hadn’t been as horrible as he’d feared. A broken wrist. Some mild burns, excluding the long nasty one stretching up her arm that was covered in gauze. A fair amount of bruises and cuts. A slight concussion. He’d been right about her having a fever, but the doctors had brought it down since they’d stumbled in. Dipper’s injuries were about the same, except for some worse cuts and severely bruised ribs. They had both been stripped of their scorched clothing and hooked up to IVs nearly the second they had arrived. Dipper had done his best to avoid looking at the needles while they'd been put in.

  
He hated hospitals. Just inhaling the sterile antiseptic scent was enough to give him chills. His sister and he were alive, and…they were pretty okay for the most part. He was feeling physically decent, despite the impending doom of their parents’ arrival.

  
“Do you think it looked cool?” Mabel piped up, still picking and scratching. “Like when we swung out of that exploding window? I bet it was pretty badass.”

  
“Badass or not, it hurt like hell.” Dipper cracked a bit of a smile. Mabel had that kind of effect on him.

  
“Too bad my grappling hook had to suffer.”

  
“I’ll buy you a new claw for Christmas, alright?”

  
She practically bounced up and down on her hospital bed. Mabel’s unlimited supply of energy was still a mystery to him. Dipper had watched earlier, bemused, as their nurse had tried to convince Mabel to sleep. Eventually the poor woman had given up on verbal negotiation and injected his twin with a sleeping drug. Her jaw had dropped when she’d walked in later after that and found Mabel still wide awake, taking funny pictures on her phone.

  
Dipper had slept; albeit forcibly. He’d passed out after first stumbling into the hospital half carrying Mabel, and then later when the nurse had injected him with a sleeping drug too. He wasn’t immune like Mabel was; he didn’t have extra energy to expend. He’d just woken up from his drug induced slumber a little bit ago. He still felt pretty exhausted but sleeping would have to wait.

  
Mabel swung her feet off the edge of her bed. Some of her painted nails had little smiley faces on them that appeared to wink when she flexed her toes. It brought a goofy smile to her face every time.

  
As much as Dipper didn’t want to burst her happy bubble he was dying to talk about the demon’s conversation with him earlier. It kept replaying in his head like a broken record. Obviously the demons were working with some higher force, but for who and why? He couldn’t think of any immediate soul sucking forces residing out there in the world aside from the usual crazy cults and the more recent Apple Electronics Company.

  
(Okay, that last one was still a bit of a conspiracy, but Dipper was _convinced_ the place was trouble; no one got so completely engrossed in their technology the way Apple users did, alright? It just wasn’t natural).

  
“Hey, Mabel?” He ventured. His sister peered up at him curiously. “There’s something you need to know,” he said. “The demon, it, uh, it told me some things when you were kicked unconscious…”

  
He quickly explained how the demon had mentioned Stan and the gang and how ‘big things were coming’. He watched the smile slip off of Mabel’s face the longer he spoke.

  
Once he was done her shoulders had completely wilted like a flower gone too long without sunlight. “Well that’s sucky,” she said. He thought that summed up the situation pretty well.

  
“We have to get ahold of Grunkle Stan as soon as we get out of here,” said Dipper, “Who knows how much of what that demon said is true?”

  
Mabel’s nose wrinkled distastefully. “Aw, can’t we eat breakfast first?” She whined. ”I haven’t eaten in over a gazillion hours. My stomach keeps grumbling like it hates me.” She lowered her voice. “’Feed me, Mabel.’” Then she hugged her stomach and cooed soothingly. “I’m sorry, lil buddy, but they just keep giving me Goldfish graham crackers and peanut butter to snack on. Soon I will reward you with a nice juicy egg omelet for your valiant patience. ’Thank you’” She giggled. “Oh, anything for you, Stummy.”

  
Dipper rolled his eyes. “Okay. Breakfast first. Then we call Stan. And can you stop talking to your stomach?” He added. “It’s kinda creepy.”

  
“’Well that’s not very nice,’” Mabel told him in her deeper voice. “”You’re just jealous cause you don’t have a close relationship with your tummy the way me and Mabel do.'”

  
“Yeah. That’s it.”

  
Dipper’s stomach chose that moment to growl loudly. Mabel burst out laughing.

  
“Oh, shut up,” he grumbled, but he was laughing too. Alright, fine, he’ll admit it. He was freakin starving.

  
Humor wasn’t doing much to help out his bruised ribs. He winced with every chuckle. “Ow, ow! Okay, seriously, ow, this hurts. Gonna try to avoid jumping out of windows from now on.”

  
Mabel blew a raspberry. “Quit bein a baby.”

  
The soft click of their hospital room door being forced open fell them both quickly into silence. An unfamiliar nurse bustled in, her eyes glued to a clipboard. “I have a Mr. and Mrs. Pines here to see Mabel and—“

  
“Oh, thank God!” A small woman wrapped in a pink bath robe wiggled past the nurse and sped over to them. She threw her arms around Mabel first, cradling the younger girl’s head to her shoulder. Mabel wrapped her good arm around their mother while she pressed a kiss to Mabel’s forehead. “Thank God. Thank _God_ ,” Mrs. Pines enthused. “When we got the call we were so worried. We didn’t know what to think…”

  
Dipper watched his father excuse the nurse and then follow in quietly behind his wife, nearly ducking to make it through the lower doorway. He too was also dressed for bed, his dark hair sticking up in a plethora of different directions as if he had rolled right out of his sleep covers to come here. His expression was stony, but there was a shine to his russet eyes that made Dipper think that the man was worried, on the inside at least.

  
He clapped a hand on Dipper’s shoulder. “You all in one piece, kid?” Dipper shrugged.

  
“More or less.” He replied. Dipper looked to his mother as she came fluttering over to him next. Her embrace was warm. He allowed himself to relax into it, pretending to be a child again for the few moments while his eyes remained closed. He let out a soft sigh, “Hi, mom.”

  
“Oh, baby, are you alright?” She pulled away and examined him with her warm brown eyes, so much like his own. When she couldn’t find any major injuries in sight she started fiddling with the hair on his forehead, gently combing through the tangles. Her fingers ghosted across his birthmark. “It’s nothing too serious, right?” she fretted.

  
“A few bruised ribs and a mild concussion,” Dipper informed her. “I’ll survive.”

  
“Roger that!” Mabel confirmed on her bed, saluting.

  
“Good, good. Because you two are in a world of trouble!” Mrs. Pines stepped back and crossed her arms. A scowl replaced the soft curve of her mouth. “What on earth were you two thinking, sneaking out to go to that Marcie girl’s party?” she demanded. “Mabel, we’ve already told you about the parties after curfew thing, but Dipper! I expected better from you.”

  
Ah geez. “It was just…something I wanted to try, I guess,” he told her sheepishly. “You know, like, a normal teenager thing.”

  
His mother’s eyebrows shot up into her hairline. “You _wanted_ to go to the party?”

  
Dipper ran a hand across the back of his neck. He wasn’t much of a partier, that much was obvious to pretty much, well, everyone, he figured. This wasn’t his best excuse but he was still working through the fog in his head.

  
“Uh, sorta—“he tried.

  
“I made him come with me,” Mabel intervened. “I was nervous about going by myself so I brought Dipper as my buddy." She explained easily. 

  
Dipper shot her a grateful smile that she returned with a little half-shrug of her shoulder.

  
Twins. They always had each other’s backs.

  
Mrs. Pines was wary of them. Dipper didn’t blame her. She may’ve not believed in the mysterious creatures that went bump in the night but that didn’t stop her kids from getting into the occasional shenanigan or two. “So this wasn’t a monster hunting thing,” she reiterated slowly. “This was just a run of your mill normal rebellious teenager thing. I’m not going to get a call later describing how my kids were running around trashing a party looking for some… thing.”

  
Dipper showed off his white teeth for her. “Absolutely,” he agreed.

  
She zeroed in on him instantly. “You had nothing to do with that girl’s house blowing up?”

  
“No!”

  
A weak smile lifted the corners of their mother’s mouth; she never could stay angry long. “Alright, well, you’re both still grounded until college,” she decided. She stole a glance over her shoulder at Mr. Pines. “David, do you have any objections?”

  
Mr. Pines gave a firm shake of his head. He had one of those piercing stares Dipper sometimes saw coming from Stan. Over the years he had begun to wonder if it was some hereditary gene that hardened the look in the men’s eyes, or if it was just a mutual sense of loss that had bonded them together.

  
Mrs. Pines clapped her hands. “Well, I need a coffee,” she announced. “Anyone wanna come with me?”

  
“Yes!” Mabel eagerly hopped off of her hospital bed. “I’ve been cooped up in here for _waaaay_ too long. My legs feel like jello!” she exclaimed. She did a little jig on the tiles just to prove her point.

  
Mrs. Pines took her daughter gently by the wrist. Mabel skipped out joyously behind her, already launching into her hospital-time tales thus far.

  
Dipper quickly stood up. “Can I co—“

  
His dad’s voice rumbled a warning behind him “Not so fast, son” like thunder declaring an oncoming storm. Faced away from it, Dipper winced. He’d been trying to avoid a confrontation like this. Lying to his father’s face wasn’t as easy as lying to his mother’s was.

  
Out in the hall Mabel’s chattering rebounded against the hospital walls, mocking him for not acting sooner. Dipper slipped on a mask of composure. Over the years his truth stretching had become precise; do something enough times and it just sort of became habitual. He faced his father.

  
“Yeah, dad?”

  
“You weren’t lying to your mother just now, were you?” Mr. Pines pressed.

  
Dipper gave a small shake of his head.

  
“And you’re not lying to me?”

  
“Nope,” Dipper answered smoothly. “I went to the party to watch out for Mabel, just like I told mom. So can I go now?” He stepped closer to the door. “I’m pretty hungry too.”

  
Mr. Pines took a seat on Dipper’s hospital bed and patted the empty wrinkles beside him the way he had when Dipper was four years old and refused to sleep so early in the night. The comparison wasn’t welcome; the fact that standing there only prolonged his quiet humiliation is what eventually drove Dipper to plopping down beside his dad with a sorry sigh. He was not a child, and he was not going to give his father the satisfaction of seeing him act like one.

  
Mr. Pines jostled the mattress, trying to find a comfortable spot. Once they were settled he began. “You know, Dip. Everything your mother and I do is always in your best interest, you and your sister. Do you have any idea why we sent you up to stay with Uncle Stan a couple years ago?”

  
The conversation swerved so quickly it nearly gave Dipper whiplash. He tore his eyes away from the bleached floor tile he’d been staring at and looked up at his father, surprised. He realized his dad was waiting for a proper answer. “Um, to experience life away from the city?” Dipper guessed. Honestly, he’d never really put much thought into such a question; he’d just kind of figured his parents had wanted to get their kids out of the house for a summer.

  
Mr. Pines nodded thoughtfully. “Well, you’re not wrong,” he said. “When I was a kid Stan used to tell me stories about that town he lived in. Weird things. Like ghosts and trolls and gnomes.”

  
Dipper’s heart jumped in his throat. _Does he know_ —“Dad, you kinda lost me here,” Dipper chuckled uncomfortably. Mr. Pines didn’t believe in the supernatural, let alone understand its existence out there in the world.

  
“I never believed any of it,” his dad confirmed, and Dipper released a silent reassured breath. “I still don’t. I think he used to tell me those stories to make me feel better about grandpa passing, give me a little hope, you know?”

  
“That’s, um, nice.”

  
“Except that none of it was real.” His dad’s voice had hardened, his mouth a thin long line creasing his face. “My father was dead and eventually I accepted the fact that no amount of hoping was going to bring him back,” he stated. “I moved on. I’m better off for it.”

  
Dipper looked down at his hands clasped tightly in his lap. He knew what had become of his grandfather. No amount of hoping and wishing and hell, even years of _building_ , had managed to bring him back to Stan either.

  
“You, Dipper; you’re still hanging on to that false hope.”

  
His head snapped up at that. “I know grandpa’s dead,” Dipper said.

  
“I’m not talking about grandpa.” When Dipper’s silence became prolonged Mr. Pines continued. “We sent you up to Stan’s so you could see that these monsters you were chasing were just stories. So you could accept that they weren’t real and move on, like I did. I see you reading those journals at night, Dip. I know they’re not school textbooks.”

  
Dipper squeezed his hands together.

  
“You promised your mother you’d drop this silly obsession, son. Remember the incident in the locker room a few months ago?”

  
 _Silly obsession_. “I know.”

  
“So why are you doing this again, Dip? Things were just starting to be good again.”

  
 _For you._

  
“Your grades were up,” his dad listed. “You were making good marks on the golf team, you had that interview with Stanford—“

  
“I don’t know, dad, okay? I don’t know,” Dipper snapped. “I’m really tired and don’t feel like being interrogated right now. Sorry.” _Sorry I ruin everything in our ‘oh-so perfect’ family_.

  
He didn’t say that.

  
His father sighed heavily. “Your mother and I just wanted you to grow up, Dipper. Try to see it from our side of things, alright? A half a year from now, you’ll be eighteen. There’s no room for fairytales in adulthood.”

  
Dipper could feel his blood boiling; the all too clean air pervading the tiny room cut like lightning across his stinging cheeks. “Why don’t you try seeing things from my side for once?” he threw back. “Then maybe I’ll try seeing it from yours.”

  
A beat of silence passed. Dipper didn’t have to look over to know he’d succeeded in pissing his father off.

  
Good. What right did the man have to immediately march in and start treating Dipper like a criminal in custody anyhow? He had no idea what his son had been through tonight. This was about the last thing Dipper felt like dealing with right now. Their feuds needed to stay at home where they belonged.

  
(Besides, Dipper hated golf. He only put up with it because prestigious colleges had careful eyes; they tended to single out the well-rounded students, otherwise he would’ve quit the dumb sport ages ago. But his dad seemed to gain selective hearing every time Dipper brought that up.)

  
Mr. Pines stood up to his complete staggering six foot God-knew-how-many-inches height, muscles in his back jutting out beneath his bed clothes like the branches of a real tree. “There’s news reporters out there.” His reply was gruff. “You’d better have a good story ready, kid.”

  
Dipper didn’t even flinch at the resounding bang that echoed from the door with his father’s departure. Instead he pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes and was horrified when they came away wet. Glistening tears shone like crystals under the fluorescents, running paths down along the curve of his hand. Dipper couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried this much.

  
He scrubbed his tears away furiously.

  
But what was a storm without rain, anyway?

* * *

 

Mabel loved the arts.

  
For as long as she could remember they had always been her thing. Most of her early memories were vague but she could recall the emotions associated with them vividly. Like in pre-school for instance there had been a time slot dedicated each day to just creativity and open expression. Kids could pretty much do whatever the heck they wanted however they wanted to do it then. Some read. Others played on the jungle gyms outside. Mabel usually spent it drawing and painting. It was the only part of school she really enjoyed.

  
Not to be braggy or anything, but she was pretty much _da bomb_ when it came to art class, and everyone knew it. She had been an advanced art student from day one and gosh darn it her skills hadn’t slowed down over time. Every year her teachers pulled her parents aside at Open House to tell them what a gifted young artist Mabel was becoming (though she could stand to stop doodling in class so much). This was her niche, her place. Dipper could own everything else on the planet, but the arts were hers.

  
Using her left hand (since her right was still bent out of shape), Mabel traced a curling line with her pencil tip and began to shade in the paper. As the years wore on, she realized that art wasn’t so much a hobby as it was an escape. Whenever she felt overwhelmed, her hands would instantly gravitate to a pencil or paintbrush or a pair of knitting needles, and soon enough her stress would ebb away like waves lapping against the shoreline. She would never admit that aloud, not to anyone; as far as they were concerned Mabel was stressed out maybe once in a blue moon. She didn’t want people worrying about her.

  
Art was about creation, so she could feel like she was preserving something in a world that was constantly crumbling down around her.

  
She idly sketched another line on a piece of notebook paper, humming. She didn’t really have any particular end in mind; she was just kind of drawing for the heck of it. Her mom was supposed to be home any minute now with the aftermath of the Marcie party fiasco. Mabel wasn’t really looking forward to any more bad news today, to say the least.

  
She took in a big whiff of vanilla wafting over from the burning candle set out nearby, and felt herself relax a little more in her seat. The best part of the holidays, aside from seeing family members, was hands down the specialized candles. They always had the most wonderful scents, like gingerbread, or peppermint, or sugar cookies. If love had an aroma, Mabel thought, it would smell like candles in December.

  
The soft screech of wood being dragged against wood had Mabel glancing up from her drawing. She watched her mother drop heavily into a kitchen chair across the table, her expression grim. “Well, dad and I spoke with Marcie’s parents,” she began, “and the good news is they’ve decided against pressing charges for the party. Something about there not being enough evidence to blame the explosion on you two.”

  
Mabel peered across the table top at her brother. She tried to exchange a knowing smile with him—he had been the first to deduce their safety from federal court, after all—but his nose was still buried in a leather bound notebook, his current investigation journal. Mabel had never asked, but she suspected it was his form of continuing where the original author of the journals had left off. After he’d filled up the third, he’d started composing a fourth mystery journal based off of his (and her) supernatural experiences, minus the cool looking covers.

  
Mabel could definitely hook him up with some if he wanted.

  
Mrs. Pines made an irritated sound in the back of her throat, but Dipper still remained fixated on his journal. “However,” she continued irately, “Marcie has requested to have a restraining order filed against you both which, as I’m sure you can imagine, is going to be incredibly frustrating dealing with at school. You’ll have to change classes; your whole schedules might be rearranged and, _Dipper, would you please look at me while I’m talking to you.”_

  
Dipper jerked at the sudden shift in her tone. His gaze flitted up from his book guiltily. “Uh, sorry,” he mumbled. It didn’t sound particularly meaningful.

  
Mrs. Pines pursed her lips, a look Mabel was well used to seeing directed at her; being siblings with a brother that did almost nothing wrong sure had its downfalls. “Did you hear what I just said?” Their mom inquired.

  
Dipper scratched his chin. “Yeah…” he coughed. “Totally.”

  
Mabel rolled her eyes. Dipper was _so_ out of it. He always got like this when there was another potential supernatural threat they had to deal with, like tunnel vision for the mysterious and otherwise disturbing and creepy.

  
She was pretty sure he would _date_ those journals if he could.

  
As if he read her mind, Dipper shot her a glare. “Marcie filed a restraining order against us,” he reiterated. “We have to change classes or whatever; I don’t care.” He waved his hand dismissively. “We’re better off away from her, if you ask me.”

  
Mabel bit her tongue. She wanted to argue that Marcie was still her friend, but that wasn’t really the case, was it? Mabel had knocked that friendship right out of the park, and not in the home run kind of way.

  
A couple of gray streaked curls had fallen loose from her mother’s bun and were sticking up sideways as if the air was charged with electricity, or maybe it was just stress that was creating the frizz. Could stress _do_ that? Mabel wondered. It would explain why Dipper’s hair always looked a mess. She’d have to Google it. Maybe test it out some time. She could hide his homework or disorganize all of his books and not give any explanation why, or-or! She could blame it on some supernatural whatsit and send him on a wild goose chase for nothing. Oh man that would be so funny—

  
Dipper’s mouth opened and Mabel realized she’d just missed a whole chunk of the conversation. Gah; her mom had been ranting before, something about terrorism and the local news?

  
“--hasn’t been a reported problem for over a year now,” Dipper finished. “So the town is pretty misinformed if that’s the case. Plus, we’re not even Muslim.”

  
Mrs. Pines’ face turned a not-so-flattering fire engine red. _Yikes_ , Mabel cringed. It was one thing to be shown up by another adult, but by a kid? That was a whole different deal.

  
Was Dipper _trying_ to piss their mom off?

  
“That’s not the point, Dipper. “ Mrs. Pines planted her elbows on the table and dropped her head into her hands. Mabel wanted to reach across the table and offer her a comforting pat on the shoulder. She was about to, when she heard the soft thud of a book closing and her brother’s remorseful sigh.

  
“Mom, I’m sorry.”

  
Mrs. Pines looked up from her hands and offered him a weak smile. The bags under her eyes were so heavy she was almost giving Dipper a run for his money. “It’s alright, hon,” she said. “We’re just doing the best we can, you know? Hospital bills on top of court bills and every other bill you have to pay to live now… it’s just a lot.”

  
“We didn’t mean to get you into this,” Mabel told her and that was the God honest truth. The supernatural was supposed to be the twins’ burden, not their parents’. That was why they only trained up in Gravity Falls and were careful to keep their tools and weapons out of sight when they returned home again.

  
Despite her own refusal, Mabel had always had the feeling that Dipper wanted their parents to be a part of the life, if not the fighting then to at least _know_. Mabel understood where he was coming from but, as much as she loathed lying, she sought to keep her parents out of danger more.

  
Mrs. Pines’ smile struggled to reach her eyes. She reached across the table and lay her hand on top of Mabel’s, offering a comforting squeeze in return. “I know. We’ll manage, kids. Don’t worry.”

  
Mabel exchanged an uneasy look with her brother, but when they faced Mrs. Pines again, they nodded.

  
An itch crept back into Mabel’s fingertips. They longed for her pencil and paper.

  
Mrs. Pines straightened her back. “In the meantime,” she continued in a noticeably lighter tone. “No school until this legal business is all sorted out. I know the doctor gave the OK to go back to class, but your father and I agree it would be best to pull you two out until this party incident cools down some. Since holiday break starts in two weeks, that means—“

  
Mabel leapt out of her chair before her mom could finish. “Yeah! No mid-terms! No studying!” she cheered.

  
“We’ll still have to take them once we get back, Mabel,” Dipper immediately pointed out in that negative nelly way of his. “Our grades will probably be worse because we weren’t there for so long.”

  
Mabel held her hand up at him, the universal STOP sign. “Whoa-ha-ho, slow down there, Scrooge. We can cross that bridge when we get to it.”

  
“What, Scrooge? That doesn’t make any sense--”

  
“For now, I propose some good ol’ fashioned R and R!” declared Mabel, talking over him. “That means PJs and movies, not books and nerd things! It’s time to get in touch with your inner sloth, bro!”

  
“Your sister is right, Dipper,” Mrs. Pines said. “I want you to relax over the next couple of weeks. It’s important that you rest your head. That means no intense research sessions until the crack of dawn every night, capiche?”

  
“Aw, what?” he whined. “Not even sometimes?”

  
“Dipper…”

  
He crossed his arms, sighing. “Okay. Fine.”

  
Mabel wanted race around the house, do cartwheels until she fell over in her own dizziness. Finally! She could have time to paint and work on her scrapbooks and collages. She could finish that sweater she was knitting Dipper for Christmas, and that macaroni art of Waddles she’d started in the fall. Her realism art could use some honing too, she thought. Sketching just wasn’t enough if she planned to go professional one day. Her gaze dropped back down to the table top.

  
Mabel froze.

  
On the piece of crumbled notebook paper she’d been doodling on before was a triangle, a single solid black pupil staring out at her from its center.

  
Like a balloon suddenly punctured by a needle the excitement deflated from her body, and Mabel sank back down in her seat, suddenly ill.

  
Dipper’s gaze was burning holes through her skin. Mabel folded up the drawing and forced a big smile on her face.

  
Oh pooper scooper, this was bad. This was really _really_ bad.

  
Mrs. Pines stood up from the table and readjusted her purse strap, seemingly oblivious to Mabel’s sudden alarm. “Dad went back to work already,” she informed the twins. “I have to head to the office for a few hours to make up the time I missed this morning. You guys know the drill. Be good. No visitors. I’ll be back by seven.”

  
She walked around the table and left a light kiss on each of their foreheads. There was a distinct sinking feeling in Mabel’s gut, like an elevator had lurched too quickly under her feet.

  
Mrs. Pines tucked a stray curl behind Mabel’s ear. “Love you,” she said, brushing Mabel’s ashen cheek.

  
Mabel’s voice swirled together with Dipper’s in an almost instinctual reply. “Love you too.”

  
Mrs. Pines pulled away. The gentle click, click of her heels against the hardwood floors echoed in her wake. She disappeared out the door.

  
Once her car engine could be heard rumbling down the street, Dipper fixed his sharp gaze on Mabel again. “Alright, let’s see it,” he said. “What’re you drawing over there?”

  
“What, _drawing_?” Mabel blew a raspberry. “I have a broken wrist, remember?”

  
“You’re ambidextrous, Mabel.”

  
“That I am, Dipper. That I am.” He made a swipe across the table, but she smacked his hand away. “It’s nothing!” Mabel objected, tucking the paper closer to her chest. “Just dumb flowers and other girly stuff you wouldn’t care about!” She didn’t know where the sudden urge to hide this drawing was coming from. Honestly Dipper deserved to know, especially if it ended up being important. She was also doing a terrible job at staying inconspicuous about it.

  
Dipper noticed; his eyes narrowed. “If I wouldn’t care, then why are you trying so hard to hide it? C’mon, Mabel, you’re the worst liar ever.”

  
Oh yeah, he definitely noticed.

  
Mabel unfolded the paper and peeked at her drawing. She felt her blood turn to ice in her veins. Bill’s graphite eye seemed to watch her no matter which way she moved.

  
“Just…don’t freak out, okay?” Mabel ventured. She glanced up at Dipper through her lashes. “Promise you won’t go totally cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs if I show you this.”

  
Dipper sighed, his patience clearly tried. “I promise.”

  
She slid the paper face down across the table the same way agents handled top secret files. Dipper rolled his eyes at her theatrics and picked it up. It wasn’t long before the color vanished from his face completely.

  
The silence was unnerving. Yelling she could handle. Excited pacing, animated gestures; that was all typical behavior of her geek brother once he found a new lead to work with. This stone cold block of ice he seemed incased in now was as foreign to her as the North Pole was to the South Pole.

  
Mabel snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Bro, you’re still breathing, right? How many fingers am I holding up?” she fretted, waving her hand back and forth.

  
His brown eyes were wide and frightened, like a deer caught in car headlights at night, when he finally looked back up at her. “Why…” Dipper’s voice cracked, and to her surprise, he didn’t bother looking embarrassed. “Why did you draw, you-know-who?”

  
Mabel winced. “I told you it was bad,” she said, picking at her thumb nail.

  
“You didn’t answer my question.”

  
“I don’t know, Dip! I was thinking about Marcie’s party and then tada that’s what I drew. The demons last night might’ve just reminded me of—you know.” She tried to silently communicate through the inflection in her voice, ‘ _it might not mean anything_.’

  
Her twin sought out his pen on the table and brought it to his mouth, nervously chewing on the end. She could almost picture the gears in his head quickly turning possibility after possibility over. She figured they were probably sharing similar thoughts.

  
Bill Cipher was a dream demon. He, like, majored in all that subconscious mumbo-jumbo. It wouldn’t be out of his realm to influence Mabel into sketching out a threat.

  
But it was a little far-fetched, considering the Pines had banished him away for like a gazillion years.

  
Dipper shook his head as if to shake it free of cobwebs. “Bad memories,” he muttered. “But we shouldn’t jump to any conclusions right now. We need more evidence.”

  
Mabel stared at her twin. Okay, so, like, Dip was a pretty levelheaded guy for the most part, don’t get her wrong, but she could count on one finger the number of times he hadn’t jumped to conclusions before.

  
It was this time. Right now. That was the finger.

  
She tilted her head to the side, squinting. “Dipper, say whaaat?”

  
He frowned. “What?”

  
“Bro, you’re like the _queen_ of conclusion jumping! All you ever do is jump to conclusions! You start muttering to yourself and pacing like there’s ants in your pants and like” She gestured to him wildly. “Where the heck is all that?”

  
Dipper brushed her off. “We have to call Grunkle Stan,” he said instead. “We have to know if there’s been any strange disturbances in Gravity Falls recently. If what that demon said is true then…”

  
‘ _He might not even still be alive_ ’ the thought passed unspoken between them.

  
“There’s always strange disturbances in Gravity Falls,” Mabel pointed out optimistically, but she passed Dipper her phone. She was pretty anxious about her family’s whereabouts too.

  
After fiddling with the device for a few seconds, Dipper gave up and asked. “What’s your password?”

  
Mabel felt a smile tug at her lips. “Oh! It’s, um.” She leaned across the table and traced her password on the lock screen, trying (and failing) to smother her giggles.

  
Dipper frowned. “A backwards three?”

  
“Or a sideways butt,” she confirmed, sitting back in her chair. “It used to look like a boomerang, but I kept messing that up too much.”

  
Dipper refrained from looking surprised. “Should’ve seen that one coming,” he muttered, scrolling on the phone. “Alright, Grunkle Stan, Grunkle Stan, where are you—Aha!” He pressed the contact and held the phone to his ear, satisfied.

  
Mabel found herself leaning, okay; it was more like lounging, across the table as the phone began to ring. Wow, did she always talk with the volume that loud? Not that she really talked on the phone that much (who did, nowadays?), but geez louise she needed to take it down a few notches—

  
“You’re breathing down my neck,” Dipper hissed, cutting through her mental conversation.

  
“Then put the phone on speaker, doofus,” she retorted. “I wanna hear too.”

  
“I will if he answers.” Someone else’s voice arose from the other end of the line, and for a moment Mabel felt an overwhelming sense of relief squeeze her heart.

  
But it was just their Grunkle’s cheerful automated voice messaging system. “ _Hi, you’ve reached the Mystery Shack, Gravity Falls’ number one stop ‘n shop for magic and fun! Mr. Mystery and his employees are busy giving tours to a bunch of suckers—erm,_ tourists _, but if you leave your name and number, we’d be happy to get back to you with whatever petty demands you have! Our hours are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, so don’t bother showing up at any other time. The real mystery is why you’re still listening to this automated message! Aha ha ha! No, seriously, why are you still listening to this? Hey, Soos, when is this thing gonna_ ”—Beep!

  
Dipper didn’t bother leaving a message behind. “It’s a wonder how he gets any business at all.”

  
Mabel almost toppled off the table trying to peer over his shoulder. “Why didn’t you leave a message?” she demanded because honestly, if she was going to let Dipper use her phone to call, the least he could do was be polite about it.

  
He was already trying to call again. “C’mon, Stan…” Dipper murmured. He chewed his bottom lip. “Okay. Plan B,” he announced, when the voice message appeared once more. “We call Wendy.”

  
Mabel gave him a funny look. “What, Wendy? But she’s at college. Why not call Soos?”

  
“Because Soos doesn’t have a cellphone, remember? Besides, college kids should be on break by now,” reasoned Dipper, holding the phone back up to his ear. “Most of them work during the holidays. I bet Wendy’s not an exception.”

  
“Oh, yeah,” Mabel murmured. “Wait, isn’t she going to community college, anyway?”

  
Her brother shushed her. Mabel waited impatiently for him to exclaim, “Hey, Wendy!” and when he did she could practically hear the gasp of relief in his greeting. “No, no, everything is fine! I was just calling to see what was up!” Mabel listened to Wendy’s tiny voice replying back through the phone. Dipper gave an uncomfortable laugh. “What? Of course I’m not lying! I, uh, okay actually I was trying to get ahold of Stan earlier—“

  
“And I was too!” Mabel chimed in.

  
“—But he didn’t answer. We haven’t heard from him in a while and we’re kind of—what? Oh, yeah, Mabel is here too.” He pulled his mouth away from the phone. “Wendy says hi.”

  
“Hi!” Mabel called back, waving to the phone. She nudged her brother’s shoulder. “Hey, Dip, put her on speaker. You said you would.”

  
“Okay, okay.” The ol’ Dipster was grinning, a pretty rare sight to behold. Although her twin had given up his crush on their friend many moons ago, Mabel knew Wendy would always hold a special place in his heart. They did always say you never forgot your first love. She thought of George Washington on the one dollar bill and sighed.

  
Dipper held the phone out to include Mabel. “You’re on speaker-phone now, Wend!” he announced.

  
“Awesome!” came Wendy’s smooth reply through the speakers. “What’s up, dudes? Did something happen to ol’ Stan?”

  
“No!” replied Dipper. “Well, maybe…”

  
“We don’t know!” Mabel finished for him. “How’s college treatin ya this year, Wend?”

  
“I’m just glad I’m almost done,” Wendy told her. “One more year to go and then I’m free, baby! I’m gonna go see the world.”

  
“Oooo, you should go to Paris, and Rome, and when you do take lots and lots of pictures!” Mabel instructed. “And then send them to me! I’ll put a scrapbook together of all the different places you’ve been!”

  
Wendy chuckled. “You know I will,” she replied warmly. “I can’t see Dipper, but I know he’s practically bursting over there. So you think something bad’s happened to Stan, eh, Dip?”

  
He swung right back into the conversation as if he’d never left. “It’s possible. We had a run in with a demon the other day that told us you, Soos, and Stan were in danger. We tried calling the Shack earlier, but no dice.”

  
“Whoa, a _demon_? Are you guys okay?”

  
“We’re concussed!” Mabel stated proudly.

  
“It was…a rough fight to say the least,” Dipper agreed. “But we’re on our feet and functioning, so don’t worry. Have you heard anything from the Shack recently?”

  
“No,” Wendy said. “Haven’t gotten a call in a couple months, actually…but I’m fine. I’m heading back into town today for the holidays. I could swing by and see if there’s anything going on.”

  
“Are you sure?” Mabel watched her brother’s grip tighten around the phone. “It could be dangerous…”

  
“Ha, I’ve got an ax in the back of this car, remember? I’ll be fine,” Wendy promised. “I’ll give you guys the status report in a couple hours. Sound good?”

  
“Sounds like a plan,” conceded Dipper.

  
“I’ll talk to you guys later, alright? This jerk in front of me is taking _way_ too long at this gas pump.”

  
“Honk the horn!” Mabel crowed. Dipper followed up with a, “Stay safe!”

  
“Bye, guys!” Wendy’s voice crackled and broke off. The line went dead.

  
Dipper stared at the phone’s blank screen for a long time. Mabel thought that she knew how he felt. She missed hanging out with Wendy. Now that everyone was all adultish and busy, it was hard to find time to even say a casual hello to each other. She found herself suddenly nostalgic for those simpler days, when seeing Wendy was still a big part of their visits to Gravity Falls, when it was just the good ol’ summer tradition.

  
A lot had changed since those first couple years.

  
Dipper handed her phone back. Mabel pocketed it.

  
“She’ll be alright,” Mabel told him.

  
Mabel watched him fold up her sketch and stick it into a random page of his journal. It stuck out the top, like a bookmarker. “Yeah,” Dipper said. “I know.”

  
Neither of them sounded like they quite believed it.

* * *

 

Wendy never called.

  
Wendy never called, and Dipper didn’t know how he could possibly still be surprised by revelations like this. Of course it wasn’t that easy. Of course something terrible had happened to her. How could he have expected any different?

  
He waited an hour.

  
Then two.

  
Followed by two more.

  
And then to put it bluntly, he said ‘fuck it’ and started loading up his car.

  
It was just the essentials, a few pairs of clothes, some toiletries, a couple knives and switch blades, all carved with alchemist symbols to expel demons or seriously burn some unfriendly monsters (he was coming prepared this time), the shotgun his Grunkle Stan had given him and Mabel for their sixteenth birthday, and of course, his mystery journals. Somehow, that all managed to fit into two black duffle bags.

  
He wasn’t surprised when Mabel tossed her own bags into the back seat, but he did have to protest. “Mabel, your wrist—“

  
“Nuh uh, broseph. No way are you going to save our family without me,” she declared. “You need me.”

  
And despite himself, Dipper grinned. “Hell yeah, I do. Mystery twins?”

  
She bumped his fist. “Mystery twins.”

* * *

 

He paused in his room.

  
It was a small space, messy enough to show that he was busy, but clean enough not to drive him crazy when he needed to sit down and concentrate. Clothing pieces littered the floor. His desk was overflowing with papers and projects, most of which were still unfinished. Dipper could come up with plenty of ideas. It was executing them into the wee hours of the morning that usually proved to be difficult, if the black scribbles covering most of the white sheets were any indication of his frustration.

  
He crossed the room solemnly, passing by his wrinkled bed and nightstand piled high with books that ran out of space on his shelves. Over by the windows, blue curtains were strung up, wafting through the Californian breeze like beating wings. There was bitterness to the air now, as if the East were sharing some of its winter chill with the West.

  
Dipper pushed one of the window panes down and locked it shut. Late afternoon sunlight filtered in through the glass and painted his room in warm strokes of gold. He shut the next window and then turned to his bed, pulling up his covers and tossing his pillows on top.

  
It wasn’t that he was afraid he’d never see the place again; that wasn’t where his sentimentality was emerging from. He’d long since accepted that every time he left this room might be his last. It was over on a shelf above his desk that was giving him pause. A blue trucker hat with a pine tree stamped on its front was watching him from over there, faded with age and disuse.

  
Dipper cautiously picked the hat up. A layer of dust coated the worn fabric from the last time he’d slipped it on his head. Memories threatened to come flooding free of the dam he’d built up years ago, but he held them at bay. He told himself he was hesitating to wear it once more because the hat probably wouldn’t fit, but that was a lie. It was from the Mystery Shack Gift Shop, which meant one size fit all.

  
He flexed his fingers. Nothing out of the norm that he could see.

  
 _And yet_ …

  
His grip around the hat was weak. He just wasn’t sure if he was ready to face the past yet. Not the bad parts, at least. There were some things even Dipper was alright with running away from.

  
In the end, he resolved to jam the old thing in his pocket and sort through his emotions later. Either way, it wouldn’t feel right, leaving without it.

  
Dipper rushed out the door, only pausing again once in the kitchen to make sure Mabel left a note to their parents on the table like he’d asked her to.

  
Maybe he’d find the courage to try the hat on later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "It's Mabel and Dipper on another whirl-wind adventure!"--Mabel Pines (in reference to Shrek) during the drive up to Gravity Falls, probably.
> 
> Alright, so I wanted to take a stab at writing some Pines parents and come up with some backstory behind that first long stay in Gravity Falls when the twins were 12. Obviously we don't know about the parents, but I figure their dad is probably a little like Stan and their mom is if you were to take Mabel and Dipper's personalities and mush them together; a small nervous ball of energy.
> 
> I know Dipper is based off of Alex Hirsch, but I can't really see Dipper becoming an animator when he grows up? I think its more likely for Mabel to take up that profession. And of course, I had to choose Stanford University as a school Dipper is interested in because the name and also the school's mascot is a pine tree, like c'mon now.
> 
> Don't want to give too much away, but Dipper's behavior when Bill is mentioned is intentional. The past is a tricky thing.

**Author's Note:**

> So, what do you guys think so far?
> 
> Leave some comments and reviews and let me know!


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